Xtar D4 Battery charger sent for review by Xtar
” Product Page @ Xtar “:http://www.xtar.cc/products_detail/productId=201.html
I have been taking my time testing the D4 and running as many 18650 through it as possible . So just let me say no batteries got hot during charging . Now some may wonder why that might be important ? ( Maybe ) Well , back in the not so good old times for flashaholics we had some very basic chargers that did not terminate charging and they simply went into trickle charge mode and trickle charged against the internal resistance of the battery . Now depending on the internal resistance of the battery , the possibility existed to really overcharge the battery .
After this came chargers that actually terminated charging , some were voltage regulated and depending on how well calibrated they were overcharging was still possible . Now these early chargers did not take internal resistance into consideration at all and a lot of the time batteries came off the charger somewhat warm if not possibly hot . Now with batteries , heat is a sure sign of stress ! And most of my older chargers that were designed 10 or possibly more years ago seem to have stressed batteries during charging as the completed batteries were very warm .
This is why these days I try to be as gentle as possible putting energy back into the battery . ( But that’s just me ) A lot of people are still in a hurry and charging batteries is no different , they wanted them charged 5 minutes ago . Vapers especially seem to be stressing out batteries and are featured in several youtube video’s where their batteries give up in protest . Now it occurred to me that , would it not be nice if you could actually tell if your batteries were in , not such great shape before they let you know violently .
Funny thing is , there is ! The most basic way is with a Multi Meter and one simply measures the resting voltage of a battery after charging . This is kind of why I was a little slow testing the D4 . It seems it is a little sensitive to high resistance ( This be good ) . I also wanted to compare the D4 against the MC3 charger as both are representative of current modern chargers .
D4 Charger Terminating Voltage - MC3 Charger Terminating Voltage
(D4) 4.07- 4.14 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.11- 4.17 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.13- 4.16 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.04- 4.08 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.14- 4.17 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.0- 4.12 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.11- 4.17 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.1- 4.16 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.15- 4.18 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.08- 4.14 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.16- 4.17 ( MC3)
(D4) 4.07- 4.16 ( MC3)
It just happened to be a good time for Xtar to send me chargers for testing as it was time for my annual 18650 top up . I might have close to 30 or so 18650 that are recharged once or twice a year , kept ready for action . Now some may say it’s a bad idea to store batteries fully charged and I would say , I don’t really know about that ? I have kept my batteries in a state of CHARGED for about a decade now . And it would be fair to say some have died , but the majority soldier on . My oldest being a Blue 18650 that was bundled with the L2 almost a decade ago . This Blue 18650 still holds voltage after something like 8 years of being stored charged .
Back to the D4 .
Lets see …
If you leave Slot 2 Empty , Slot 1 can charge up to 2 amp depending on the battery . If you leave slot 3 empty then slot 4 can charge up to 2A . After this it gets a little vague , but I think … Slot 2 and 3 charge at 0.5A and if slots 2 and 3 are populated then slots 1 and 4 charge at 1 amp . So the D4 does give you some options . Just need to remember what slots to populate .
I am really impressed by the D4 and it looks to be a really useful tool for letting me know what batteries might be some what NQR ( not quite right ) . Honestly , there is nothing negative to say about the charger . It looks to do the job very nicely and from the results so far the D4 could be a very safe charger for those that want to play and forget . ( You really want to monitor your batteries - get a MM ) . Better quality 18650 consistently charged to 3.17 - 3.19v with the D4 , but as mentioned the D4 does seem to pick up on batteries with higher than normal internal resistance . This might be something that interests some and yet others might want a charger that just pumps the batteries a little harder ( MC3 ? ) . Personally I have taken a real shine to the D4 and plan to use it a lot more , because it is giving me valuable information about my batteries . The D4 is simply another excellent product from Xtar and with nothing to fault the score has to be 10 out of 10 .